Drum printers are known in the printing industry. These are usually high throughput machines, such as HP Scitex TJ8000 and TJ8300 that print on flexible and semi-rigid substrates wrapped around the drum. Auxiliary devices, such as ink curing or drying devices, loading devices, etc. are arranged close to the drum surface. Substrate loading and unloading processes, when performed manually or automatically from a roll of substrate material, require the printing drum to be static at the time of substrate loading. Drying/curing of printed image requires a relatively long substrate pass that increases significantly the footprint of the printer. Drum printers also have a fixed throughput defined by the number of print heads or arrays operative for printing, although in some cases change of throughput is desired.